1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to manual marine winches. More specifically, the present invention relates to a manual marine swivel winches having internal gearing for barge coupling.
2. Background Information
Winches have been used in many applications. Manual swivel and stationary winches have been widely used in barges, tow boats and the like. The use of barges, sometimes called lighters, to transport cargo is common in marine transportation. Barges may be used singly, or in groups generally referred to as “barge trains” or “tows”. These tows can be up to 40 barges in size (five wide and eight deep). The barges in a barge train carrying goods in harbors and along rivers are, usually, lashed tightly together through winches (located on each end of or in the four corners of each barge) and associated cable lines, two or three abreast, with several successive rows of such barges in one barge train. Typically a manual swivel winch is pivotally attached to a D-ring on a barge boat deck and spools a towing cable on a rotating drum, whereas a stationary winch is welded or otherwise secured to the deck.
These marine winches must be quick and easy to use and often are exposed to an abrasive environment and can become immersed in coal, ore or other material being transported. Consequently, these winches also must have a sturdy construction. Examples of manual winches are sold by W. W. Patterson Company and Nashville Bridge Company. The most common type of manual winch includes a pivoting pawl, or dog, engaging a ratchet gear of a ratchet for the winch. The pawl prevents the unwinding of the reel during engagement of the pawl. W.W. Paterson manufactures a sturdy manual marine winch having an open bottom configuration that saves material and provides easy winch clean-up as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,450 which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Additionally, in conventional marine winch constructions, the tension or slack take up at the beginning of the tensioning operation requires a number of rotations of the drum and the wrapping of the winch line around the drum. This labor-intensive slack take up increases the time for the tensioning of the winch and must also be accounted for when paying out the load and when decoupling the winch line from the winch. The wire rope simply does not wrap easily around a small diameter drum found on conventional marine winches. Multiple layers of wire rope on the drum will also reduce the achievable tension of the drum and add the possibility of the payoff line becoming wedged in the lower wraps. A problem associated with marine winches is deck space. Deck space is a premium on barges and all marine craft. Consequently, minimizing the size of the drum and associated components of a marine winch is very advantageous since the overall footprint and height of the resulting winch can be reduced., W.W. Patterson has proposed a sturdy small manual marine winch that addresses these concerns in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/965,788 which has been published as U.S. Published Patent Application No. 20030057409 and which is also incorporated herein by reference.
The marine winches of the existing designs, of which the above patent and patent applications are representative, have exposed drum gearing that presents an ever present danger to the operators. The drum gearing is often provided with external protective shrouding, but this is not always completely effective and adds additional cost to the overall device. Operator clothing can still occasionally become caught and damaged in the gearing.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a manual marine swivel winch which provides gearing shrouding integral with the gearing and that is simple and efficient in operation.